Traumatic spine injury in Kashan, Iran

Objective: Traumatic spine injuries are seriously important and are associated with considerable morbidity and mortality. The goal of this study is to determine the epidemiology of the traumatic spine injuries in Shahid Beheshti Hospital of Kashan University of Medical Sciences (KAUMS), the main trauma center in Kashan, Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was undertaken on all cases of traumatic spinal injuries that were admitted to Shahid Beheshti hospital of KAUMS from 2014 to 2017. A checklist was used to collect demographic characteristics (age, gender, education, marital) and mechanism of the injury of the spine. According to ICD-10, the level of the injury was detected by diagnostic tests such as radiologic imaging and magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography scans, and also multi-trauma final outcome of the patients with traumatic spine injury (TSI) and rate of the spinal cord injury (SCI), hospital length of stay and surgery treatment was investigated. Results: The number of patients with traumatic spine injuries was 986. Among this batch, 77% were males. The mean age of the patients was 39.5 years. Most injuries occurred in the age group of 15 to 30 years. Traffic accident was the most common mechanism of the trauma (35.2%) followed by the falls (26.95%) motorcycle accident (17.9%), assault by a sharp object or an unspecified object (10.13%) and other reasons (5.6%). The most common site of injury was in lumbar section (24.41%). Patients with traffic accident injury had the longest hospitalization. The rate of SCI was 2.63% and the rate of mortality was 2.3%. Conclusion: The TSI is an important and serious public health problem and a major cause of disability. Understanding the epidemiology can help us contrive appropriate preventative measures.